Michael Hon, CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Assoc. Broker, Silvercreek RG
The Iron Eagle Realty Team is a Full Service Real Estate Company. Our mission is to assist our clients in the successful acquisition and sale of their personal homes and/or investment properties in the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. We have successfully helped our clients with short sales, investment properties and foreclosed / bank owned properties in the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market.

Sunday, March 01, 2015

Fewer homes for sale pushes up US house prices in December

U.S. home prices rose in December at a faster pace than the previous month, likely because of a much smaller number of homes for sale.

This Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015 photo shows a sign advertising a house for sale in Los Angeles. Standard & Poor’s releases its 20-city home price index for December and the fourth quarter on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

This Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015 photo shows a sign advertising a house for sale in Los Angeles. Standard & Poor’s releases its 20-city home price index for December and the fourth quarter on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, released Tuesday, increased 4.5 percent in December compared with 12 months earlier. That is up from 4.3 percent in November and the same as October's annual increase. The small gain comes after price increases had slowed for 12 straight months.

Americans are listing fewer homes for sale, pushing up prices and keeping many houses out of reach for would-be buyers. Home prices are rising faster than most Americans' wages, slowing sales even as hiring strengthens, consumer confidence grows and mortgages stay low.

Still, the smaller price gains are more sustainable and less harmful for potential buyers than last year's double-digit increases.

The Case-Shiller index covers roughly half of U.S. homes. The index measures prices compared with those in January 2000 and creates a three-month moving average. The December figures are the latest available.

The number of homes for sale in December was equal to just 4.4 months of sales, the lowest level in nearly two years. Six months of supply is typical for a healthy housing market.

"The housing recovery is faltering," said David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P's index committee. "While prices and sales of existing homes are close to normal, construction and new home sales remain weak."

All 20 cities reported higher prices than a year earlier. The biggest gains were in San Francisco, where prices rose 9.3 percent, and Miami, where they jumped 8.4 percent. Chicago reported the smallest gain, at 1.3 percent.

December's price rise is far ahead of wage gains. Average hourly wages rose at a faster pace in January compared with the previous month, but were just 2.2 percent higher than a year ago. Pay gains have been stuck largely at that level for most of the five years since the recession.

Sales of existing homes fell last year after two years of steady recovery. That has led many economists to forecast a rebound in sales in 2015, but so far there are few signs of it.

In January, existing home sales tumbled 4.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million, the slowest pace in nine months, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.

And the construction of new homes fell 2 percent in January, the Commerce Department said last week.

Lower mortgage rates and strong job growth may yet spur more sales later this year. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 3.76 percent last week, according to the mortgage giant Freddie Mac. That has ticked up in recent weeks, but is far below the 4.33 percent average from a year ago.

Employers have ramped up hiring, encouraged by strong growth last spring and summer. The U.S. economy added more than 1 million jobs from November through January, the fastest three-month pace in 17 years. More Americans earning paychecks should eventually push home sales higher.

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, Associated Press

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

Sunday, February 08, 2015

With Tax Law Changes, Foreign Investment Could Take Off
Changes to FIRPTA could open up the floodgates for cross-border capital

By Les Shaver, www.multifamilyexecutive.com

The American apartment market has seen a dramatic rise in the influx of foreign capital over the past decade. But the panelists on the “Across the Universe - Where Is the Capital Coming From?” panel at National Multifamily Housing Council’s Apartment Strategies Conference expect an even bigger infusion if policymakers address tax law.

The Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act of 1980 (FIRPTA), which imposes income tax on foreign persons disposing of United States real estate, basically penalizes foreign investors for spending money in the United States.

If there is a change in that law, David Schwartz, CEO of Waterton Associates, thinks international capital flows could dramatically increase.

“If FIRPTA goes away, I think it opens the floodgates of capital even if you're just planting seeds today [of investment with potential foreign investors],” he said. “If there's no FIRPTA in two to three years. that money could be coming here.”

Land of Opportunity
The opportunity with foreign investors is real because of volatility in many other areas of the world, according to Schwartz. “The U.S is a safe haven,” he said. But just because foreign investors are interested in investing in American multifamily doesn’t mean they don’t hold some reservations. Clyde Holland, chairman and CEO, Holland Partner Group, claimed that reporting and communication can help assuage these fears.

Holland said that most of the foreign investors he has worked with prefer longer hold times so it’s important to develop a long-term strategic plan.

To help these investors gain a comfort level, Schwartz claimed it’s important to visit with them and educate them on their turf. “You need a much larger educational component to familiarize investors,” he said.

That education is important because, in some cases, the apartments that investors will be putting their money into can vary greatly from the multifamily they’re accustomed to in their home countries. For instance, in Canada rental apartments are often older concrete structures from the 60’s and 70’s.

But, on the flipside, if a country has a vibrant apartment market, it can make the sales job easier. “The Chinese really want to come to the U.S.,” Schwartz says. “They love it. They are really familiar with the concept of apartment housing.”

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

Thursday, February 05, 2015

Call them the prodigal millennials: Statistical measures and anecdotal reports suggest that young couples and singles in their late 20s and early 30s have begun making a belated entry into the home-buying market, pushed by mortgage rates in the mid-3% range, government efforts to ease credit requirements and deep frustrations at having to pay rising rents without creating equity.

Listen to Kathleen Hart, who just bought a condo unit with her husband, Devin Wall, that looks out on the Columbia River in Wenatchee, Wash.: "We were just tired of renting, tired of sharing with roommates and not having a place of our own. Finally the numbers added up."

Erin Beasley and her fiance closed on a condo in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, D.C., in January. "With the way rents kept on going," she said, "we realized it was time" after five years as tenants. "With renting, at some point you get really tired of it — you want to own, be able to make changes" that suit you, not some landlord.

Hart and Beasley are part of the leading edge of the massive millennial demographic bulge that has been missing in action on home buying since the end of the Great Recession. Instead of representing the 38% to 40% of purchases that real estate industry economists say would have been expected for first-timers, they've lagged behind in market share, sometimes by as much as 10 percentage points. But new signs are emerging that hint that maybe the conditions finally are right for them to shop and buy:

•Redfin, a national real estate brokerage, said that first-time buyers accounted for 57% of home tours conducted by its agents mid-month — the highest rate in recent years. Home-purchase education class requests, typically dominated by first-timers, jumped 27% in January over a year earlier. "I think it is significant," Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson said. "They are sticking a toe in the water."

•The Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey, which monthly polls 2,000 realty agents nationwide, reported that first-time buyer activity has started to increase much earlier than is typical seasonally. First-timers accounted for 36.3% of home purchases in December, according to the survey.

•Anecdotal reports from realty brokers around the country also point to exceptional activity in the last few weeks. Gary Kassan, an agent with Pinnacle Estate Properties in the Los Angeles area, says nearly half of his current clients are first-time buyers. Martha Floyd, an agent with McEnearney Associates Inc. Realtors in McLean, Va., said she is working with "an unusually high" number of young, first-time buyers. "I think there are green shoots here," she said, especially in contrast with a year ago.

Assuming these early impressions could point to a trend, what's driving the action? The decline in interest rates, high rents and sheer pent-up demand play major roles.

But there are other factors that could be at work. In the last few weeks, key sources of financing for entry-level buyers — the Federal Housing Administration and giant investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — have announced consumer-friendly improvements to their rules. The FHA cut its punitively high upfront mortgage insurance premiums and Fannie and Freddie reduced minimum down payments to 3% from 5%.

Price increases on homes also have moderated in many areas, improving affordability. Plus many younger buyers have discovered the wide spectrum of special financing assistance programs open to them through state and local housing agencies.

Hart and her husband made use of one of the Washington State Housing Finance Commission's buyer assistance programs, which provides second-mortgage loans with zero interest rates to help with down payments and closing costs. Dozens of state agencies across the country offer help for first-timers, often with generous qualifying income limits.

Bottom line: Nobody knows yet whether or how long the uptick in first-time buyer activity will last, but there's no question that market conditions are encouraging. It just might be the right time.

By Kenneth R. Harney, Los Angeles Times

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

Apparently fears of the apartment market slowing were overblown, according to a recent report from RealPage's MPF Research.

Rent growth accelerated to 4.7 percent in 2014, the highest figure since 2011. Usually the pace of rent growth slows after the first couple of years of a cycle, but this upturn is behaving differently, driven by strong job growth in higher-paying jobs in 2014.

“The overall economic performance was stronger than typical at this stage of the recovery,” said MPF Research vice president Greg Willett. “Job production went up 20 to 25 percent over the previous three or four years. In past years, 60 percent of those jobs were in low-paying industries. In 2014, 60 percent of those jobs were in higher paying industries.”

One surprising driver of growth was the fourth quarter, when things usually slow. Rents actually rose 0.6 percent during the last quarter of 2014, which was only the second time in the last decade rents rose so much at the tail-end of the year (the other time was 2005).

“The overall economic performance was stronger,” Willett says. “And, certainly if you compare it to last year, the weather was really cooperative, as well.”

Absorbing the Supply
The industry’s strong performance in 2014 came despite a 14-year high of 246,579 new completions in the nation’s 100 largest metros. But with demand at 268,532 units, the supply/demand equation was still in favor of landlords, as occupancy climbed 30 basis points to 95.3 percent.

Supply should increase this year as well. During 2015, 290,145 new units are expected to be delivered, which will put more pressure on apartment owners. But MPF expects actual deliveries to be less than that because of construction delays due to labor shortages in many markets. As such, the research firm forecasts 2015 new supply to be around 250,000 to 260,000 units, which will be on par with 2014’s tally.

MPF expects the market to be able to absorb those 250,000 to 260,000 new units. Overall, MPF expects rent growth of 3.5 to 4 percent for the year ahead. But the growth won’t be even.

“I do think we are in late innings for the urban core/really expensive apartments,” Willett says. “There just aren’t that many households out there who can afford that. Those units tend to be built for Millennials, but honestly they’re too expensive for them.”

But in other spots, outside of the urban core, 2015 looks a lot better.

“We still have a lot of runway for suburban or even urban fringe, where you’re just coming down from that 'Main and Main' price point by 10 or 20 percent,” Willett says. “The middle market is still going strong. The concern about the middle market was affordability. But if wage growth is getting better, maybe that’s not as big a problem as we thought it should be.”

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

Thursday, January 01, 2015

Whether you’re looking to sell your home or spent the last year waffling between renting or buying, you probably have one question as we head into the new year: Will 2015 be better — or are we headed into another year of the same?

There’s no such thing as a real estate crystal ball, and anyone who claims to have all the answers probably has a hidden agenda. With many factors to consider, let’s take a closer look.

The recovery process — where are we?

Trulia’s Chief Economist Jed Kolko recently came to the conclusion that while none of the five measurements in Trulia's TRLA -0.64% Housing Barometer are completely back to normal, most are making progress. It’s been three years since prices bottomed out in 2011, and we are still very much in recovery mode with rebound effects slowing; housing prices are no longer significantly undervalued and the investor market is drying up.

As a former broker, I have to agree — the investor well is indeed dry. In the past week alone I’ve received calls from three investor groups inquiring about off-market deals in the Seattle metro area. They complained that rising prices have impacted the number of available opportunities and so they’re looking for additional sources. (Sorry! No deals here.)

The good news is that most of us think things are about to get better. Regardless of the slowing rebound effects, there is optimism in the air. According to the Trulia study, consumers think 2015 will be an improvement over 2014 for all real estate activities, especially for sellers.

The millennial factor

Undoubtedly, the purchasing power of the millennial demographic packs a serious punch. And it seems that home ownership still plays a key role in the American dream, especially among young adults — an overwhelming 93 percent of young adult renters responded yes when asked if they will be purchasing a home someday.

However, while millennials are willing to purchase a home, they are encountering barriers to executing on their dream. Hurdles such as saving a down payment, qualifying for a mortgage, and cleaning up derogatory credit items are fairly straightforward, but what about market affordability?

Making tough choices

“The number of homes for sale in my market within my price range is discouragingly low,” says Elizabeth Archer of Ukiah, CA. “I am really tired of renting, but I love the area and I’m not willing to look elsewhere. I’m crossing my fingers that some affordable houses will be for sale this spring.”

Archer is experiencing a widespread affordability issue termed the “millennial mismatch.” Millennials can afford markets where they don’t live, but they can’t afford many of the markets where they do live. They find themselves faced with a tough choice: rent for the long term or live in a less-desirable city.

From over 100 major metro cities, there were only two notable exceptions where millennials currently live and also can buy: Oklahoma City, OK, and Baton Rouge, LA. These cities have a high population of millennials and better-than-average affordability.

The bottom line

Although consumers are feeling hopeful, young people are having trouble finding jobs and affordable housing in areas they want to live in. Further hampered by weak construction growth, the housing recovery needs to play nice with the overall economic recovery to make an impactful difference.

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

As the year winds down and investors gear up for 2015, apartment sales slowed in November.

Apartment transactions totaled $8.7 billion in the month, which was a 14 percent year-over-year decline, according to New York based Real Capital Analytics (RCA). The sale of garden communities fell 5 percent and mid- and high-rise sales dropped 27 percent.
Though the pace of sales slowed, cap rates continued to compress in November, dropping 10 basis points to 5.8 percent nationally. In the third quarter, cap rates hit record lows.

For 2014, the apartment sector has accounted for $96.9 billion, which is up 7 percent from last year.

“The sector is well on track to beat the $102.5 billion of volume recorded in 2013, and may top the all-time high of $105.2 billion recorded in 2007 but much of it depends on activity in December,” RCA said in the report.

Cap Rate Compression Since 2010

The deals closed in December to date, and the pipeline of end-of-year deals, has been modest, RCA reports. But a slowdown in the last two months of the year may actually be a sign of a strong market, unlike the spike in volumes seen earlier in the recovery

“We typically see a push to get deals out the door early in the fourth quarter in an effort to get them done before the end of the year,” says Joshua Goldfarb, managing partner of Atlanta-based Multi Housing Advisors. “In the holiday period, you see less new offerings and a lot of closings. In 2010 and 2011, we saw tremendous volume in the fourth quarter, but that was banks who wanted to get toxic assets off of their balance sheets by the end of year."

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

From 2005 through 2006, apartment cap rates hit a floor of 6.2 percent multiple times, before spiking back up to 7.2 percent after the credit crisis of late 2008, according to Real Capital Analytics (RCA).

But cap rates found a new bottom this year. In the third quarter of 2014, they fell to 5.9 percent, an all-time low, according to RCA. While there may not be a cataclysmic event like the 2008 financial crisis on the horizon, some apartment investors and owners are beginning to wonder if some buyers may be getting too aggressive.

While he still sees strong fundamentals, David Schwartz, CEO of Chicago-based Wateron Associates, is concerned some investors may be too reliant on interest rates staying low.

“It’s a great time to lock 10-year money today,” he says. “A lot of people are floating everything. That is generating good yields but it has risk.”

Matt Lester, the founder and CEO of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Princeton Enterprises, thinks buyers who overpaid in the top markets may ultimately have a shorter lifespan because of overly optimistic rent growth predictions.

“There have been deals that got done, where any blip in performance or any unforeseen hurdle, could cause their acquisition or venture to tank,” he says. “I think we’re past the peak in cap rate compression.”

Not everyone has such dire predictions, but they’re prepared if multifamily has passed its peak in the cycle, which is now five years into recovery.

“If I’m paying the same cap rate in the fourth inning of a recovery as I am in the seventh inning, I don’t feel as comfortable,” says Bobby Lee, president and COO of Los Angeles-based JRK Property Holdings. “You have little bit less of runway. Pricing may have been the same as year ago, but know you have one less year of this outsized growth."

If buyers don’t realize that, Lee thinks they could be in trouble.

“To me the fundamentals of multifamily won’t kill multifamily,” Lee says. “Unless there is massive overbuilding in a market, what can kill multifamily is if you buy too expensively and overleverage. The price and value of what you pay for today is probably your single biggest risk on a micro basis.”

Sunny Days Ahead?

While even observers like Schwartz might have questions about certain deals, there are a couple of notable differences in today’s market versus the mid 2000’s.

Positive leverage on deals (with cap rates trending higher than interest rates) and strong demand (the last cycle saw high moveouts to home ownership) gives the apartment business a boost it didn’t have last time.

“I still think the fundamentals are terrific and the stars are aligned from the standpoint of capital,” says Mark Alfieri, CEO of Plano, Texas-based Monogram Residential Trust. “I don’t see anything in multifamily sector from a supply or demand standpoint that has me concerned right now.”

When judging cap rates, observers usually look to the risk premium, or the spread between cap rates and the 10-year Treasury. And right now, things are solid on that front.

“The spreads between rates and treasuries are still pretty wide and the outlook for NOI is pretty good right now,” says Ben Thypin, director of market analysis at RCA.

Brian E. McAuliffe, senior managing director for Los Angeles-based CBRE Group, is maybe even more bullish. While oversupply, a spike in treasuries, or a political event could push up cap rates, he points to demographics (Millennials moving into higher paying jobs), positive job growth, and a sluggish single-family markets as factors that could continue pushing cap rates down.

“There has been a lot of discussion about whether we we’re in the seventh inning or eighth inning of the recovery,” he says, going back to the baseball analogy. “Given where performance was on the supply side, there is a significant amount of experts who think we’re in the fourth and fifth inning of multifamily performance.”

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.